Blocks and Balls and Fag Packets

 Blocks and Balls and Fag Packets

 

I was fired from the castle project,

though, in truth, I’d sagged off a bit,

having last summer been instructed to fit

an engine to a piece of card,

all superglued; crusted fingers getting hard.

He peered from beneath his undercut perm,

parted bangs, showing fangs

in disagreement with my modus operandi,

‘I want blocks,’ he insisted,

and I recalled the time I’d resisted

a dreadful father’s hard wisdom

that I chucked away my collection of fag packets.

We kicked football. ‘You’re rusty,’ I said

as he hoofed the ball straight at my head,

and something bounced up and down the hard core,

missing about as many as he scored,

until I’m shot, panting on the floor

and seventy pounds plus for blocks or more.

‘We can use cardboard, sustainable, environment,”

I’d parroted and he almost scoffed,

because he’s older now and reaches the shoulder

I used to carry him on,

when his legs were too weak to walk upon,

or he would stumble in my wake.

“Save this, Grandad,’ he snapped,

the ball underneath his right foot and trapped,

stepover, Cruyff turn, nutmeg and watched me flap

like some overweight stuffed Great Tit,

drove the ball so close I felt the spray of winter rain,

some years fly pass and some remain.

Then, with a steely glare, I was sacked,

over wasteful blocks that I refused to back;

he gave his hair a mocking flick,

and called me out on it.

‘You feel sad, now” he guesses, correct:

I'm thinking of all those fag packets I didn't collect.

Buttered Curls

 

Buttered Curls

 

Milk curls of frigid butter saucered,

dished and melting in sun drench.

She’s frisking past in swishing skirt

that brushes your chair, fusses your hair

putting the mango, cubing the melon,

weighing with cucumber cool hands,

her measured portions to tantalize

and there’s just a sparkle in her eyes.

Oh, it stirs you and you are aware

of what is shouldn’t and seldom there.

Later will come in night’s silent sighs,

her salad tossed, her noiseless cries,

bring before your mind image sharp,

hot sauce to sip, keen scissors part,

in buttered curls, in oils, in dressing,

perforating thin tissued paper skin,

be first into her light heart entering.

It Isn’t Of Course

 

It Isn’t Of Course

 

It’s best to think of life as a thickish blue line

on a map

that stretches from here to Leeds;

a stop at Leicester Forest East,

Newport Pagnell or Trowell:

It isn’t of course,

only a fool would think that because

‘what about this skin on your toes 

that’s flaking,

buttery fungus beneath the nails

minding its own business?’ she wails,

a voice like Portuguese tomato soup,

a face from never ending time loop,

all spit and French polish.

Then there’s that food 

you ate yesterday,

inching its way, 

inching its way,

‘and you probably forgot’, she says,

whilst sweeping the floor, panning for debris,

chucking pennies in wishing wells to visit Georgia,

somewhere like that 

and many do think to feel 

all that gritty snow between freezing toes

somehow it will all click into place

like a plucked snapdragon squeezed 

will kiss and tease,

and when you look back

on this and that,

it’s not where you are 

or where you’ve been,

just what you’ve left behind that’s seen.

And You Thought There Weren’t

 

And You Thought There Weren’t

 

 

The children were the first to leave,

seats swallowed by hawked up rabies

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Above the crowd, hands conduct,

about game play he gives not a fuck,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Corners, goals, talent passed by unseen,

he’s fouled his pants, ripped his spleen,

mouths that spew in white, red, green,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Women bore him so they force an exit,

ducking shot off broadsides and strayed bullets,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Thinning crowds witness his thinning hair,

now flicking witless fingers at fresh air,

worn drums beating, klaxons blare,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Tripled chinned and full bellies five,

unfathom how he stayed alive

this long, how his doctrines are allowed to thrive,

a heart attack that was revived

by worker wasps that stock the hive,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

Fervent fist-falling fat faces pound,

blasphemes our holy sporting grounds,

a charge of static, a tedium of change,

aspects of blood unborn of blame,

from here besieged his world will burn,

in conflagrations his nations churn.

Beat thunder, bring on his end of days,

see ancient dogma in his eyes ablaze,

submit to the will of men who pray,

beget rotting fell fruit fall from apple trees,

and you thought there weren’t

men like these,

anymore.

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon

 

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon

 

Oh, I cannot swear that I do not love you

as the sun lies sick in bed, the moon is like

that cowlick, pressed against your forehead rests

a crescent, a question mark, an end stop.

No, more a waymark between throat and breasts

that sun must swell from crescents to discs,

round you gently as her passing phases call

moonshine until you’re breathless in silhouette,

in my darkness slumber and hapless to forget.

Oh, I cannot lie here and say you are not Juliet,

as the sun sends her diadem, in corona flames,

casts mirrors that shimmer with what you will attain,

scatter halos to crown moon’s darkling dove

and her shadows eclipsing such swollen love.

As your fruit must fill to fall on meadows strewn,

so shall the sun give way, with sickness swoon

under my light loving of this inconstant moon.

Sun and Light

 

Sun and Light

 

My Sun brought light, she grows in curves

but dappled. Developing in dark rooms,

pushing at wafer-skinned, light sensitive years,

just wants for a few more scanty seconds.

 

My Sun brought smiles, fetches and feeds

me fruit full. Light, her close freckled grains

of shy touch and soft suggestions breed,

she’s growing, she’s filling, she beckons.

 

My Sun brought shivering in shadow’s

light hands. Beneath her table, touching

unquivering bright that piercing arrow,

suffering shots with pitched light weapons.

Heal

 

Heal

 

Darkest those thoughts before the drop,

from ten through four squared photos crop,

recycle in raindrop rounds in puddles found

clouds, oiling the wheels, oiling the water,

oils lust for the mother and more for the daughter,

caught deep and trapped and open cast,

bring both before me chained in recent past

for your pleasure and for mine at last

then jolt and shock, drop antishock watch shook;

reach out for cruel time, wind down spiral lines,

groan deep for we have not yet cratered sleep:

the seconds, the minutes, the hours that creep,

grip hard the edge of black basins who pull

with grave intent at her sticky wool,

for she tongued and grooved and from good stock,

part her deepening cleavage, her opening frock,

invite you to reach in and begs you to touch,

run yesterday’s hands over her hot satin lands,

slipped in with scented liquid drips and slips,

fall headlong, keel over, greases weakening grips

and examines, heals, thinks, feels, cries,

hypnotized your closing eyes over closing eyes.